


bad nights aren't as bad when someone's helping you through it

by avatar_dragon_rider



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: AO3 Tags - Freeform, Ambiguously Gay, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I kept it vague, M/M, Nico Feels, Nightmares, actually no more like 6 months, and now back to our regularly scheduled angst, ao3 tags are fun, for once, foreshadowed solangelo if you can find it, hey look i finished something, i have no idea honestly i haven't read the books in like a year, i'm just ranting now why am i like this, my poor baby someone give him hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket, not shippy unless you want it to be, possible triggers, set sometime between nico's coming out and jason getting those fire horse things, why is that a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatar_dragon_rider/pseuds/avatar_dragon_rider
Summary: He took another deep breath as he turned toward the door. He slowly pushed it open, careful not to make any noise. He was exhausted and sleepy, but he wanted company. He could still feel himself shivering from the nightmares. The only problem: Hazel was on deck. She was the only person whose company Nico really wanted right now, the only one who even remotely understood what he was going through.Nico stopped in his tracks, standing in the middle of the dark hallway.That statement was no longer correct. Someone else understood what he was going through, at least one part of it. And he just so happened to be in his cabin at the moment.





	1. Chapter 1

Nico sat bolt upright in bed, cold sweat beading his forehead. This was the third time he’d awoken from a nightmare that night, and it was starting to get on his nerves. Under normal circumstances, he could control his dreams, forcing dark memories to the back of his mind and telling his subconscious where to go. But ever since his encounter with Cupid in Split, the memories seemed to pull at him, screaming for his attention like the damned souls in the Fields of Punishment. Cupid had forced him to reveal his secret crush to Jason, and in doing so, had shaken Nico so much that he lost control of his own mind.

Most of his nightmares revolved around Tartarus; the gaping hole in the Underworld sucking him in like a giant vacuum, he himself helpless against it. He’d been a fool; he should have known better than to think he could go anywhere in the Underworld. Even Hades himself didn’t venture close to the treacherous void that served as a prison for the gods’ worst enemies.

Then there was the pit itself. Falling into the River Cocytus, falling victim to the whispers of lamenting souls telling him to join them; making him rethink his choices, his desires, his very life. It had taken a lot of sheer willpower to get past them and crawl onto the shore. Drinking from the River Phlegethon to give himself strength. Wandering alone through Tartarus, battling more monsters than he’d ever faced in his life, old forgotten gods telling him things he has known for years. Fighting Gaea’s minions and eventually getting overwhelmed. Waking up in total darkness in that bronze jar, subsisting on Persephone’s pomegranate seeds while waiting for a rescue that he thought would never come.

Nico rubbed his arms. Goosebumps made his skin bumpy and uneven, like running his hands over stone. _This is ridiculous,_ he thought. _I’m a son of Hades. The darkness is my home. Death is my family. I control my dreams, not the other way around._

But tonight seemed to chase all of that away. Nico pressed his hands to his ears, shutting his eyes tightly, but that only succeeded in making the memories worse. Ghostly faces stared back at him in the darkness. Bianca, smiling and laughing. His mother, Maria di Angelo, telling him stories in Italian about his favorite Greek myths. Gaea, her eyes closed and her mouth twisted into a sinister smile. 

_Go on,_ she seemed to say. _Try and fight me, little prince of the Underworld. Lead your friends to their deaths in Epirus. Watch your quest fail and your gods crumble._

For all Nico knew, she may have actually been talking in his head.

His eyes shot open, and his hands fell into his lap. He glanced around his cabin―no, _Percy’s_ cabin. The other demigods had offered him use of the cabin, since Percy was…well, since he wasn’t using it at the moment. He had refused at first, but Hazel had half dragged, half carried him there when the sun had set, and Nico hadn’t had the strength to argue. He was too exhausted from shadow-traveling back to the ship earlier in the day. She’d laid him in Percy’s bed, and he was out before his head even hit the pillow.

Being in that room was not helping the nightmares. It only served to remind him where Percy was, what he was going to face, if he would make it out alive. If anything happened to him, or Annabeth… 

Nico shuddered, not wanting to think about it. He had already assured the others that Percy and Annabeth were fine, that they were alive, that they would find the Doors of Death and meet them in Epirus. And Nico had promised, he _would_ find them.

Nico threw off the blanket and put his feet on the floor. His aviator jacket was hanging on a hook on the wall, just where he’d left it. His sword and the scepter of Diocletian rested against the wall. His feet were bare, which was odd. Hazel must have removed his shoes before she went up to the main deck to help Piper and Coach Hedge defend the ship from anything that might attack them. Nico guessed she removed them so he wouldn’t be tempted to get up and help. And he would, if he wasn’t so exhausted. One glance out the window told him it was well after midnight; the stars were bright against the pitch black sky. 

Nico pushed himself up. He decided he couldn’t sleep in this room. He’d woken up from nightmares one too many times in this cabin. He had to get out.

But he also had a strange need, one he hadn’t felt in a long time. Or rather, hadn’t let himself feel. He wanted someone to hug him. To hold him close, run their hand through his hair like Bianca used to do when he had nightmares as a little kid, telling him everything would be okay, that the monsters were gone, and it was only his imagination.

The thought made him want to cry. Bianca was gone. She’d been reborn. Nico would never see her again, no matter how hard he wanted to. His shoulders shook as he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

 _Get a grip, di Angelo,_ he scolded himself. _You’re the son of Hades. You know better than to succumb to fear._

He walked over to the mirror that hung on the wall over Percy’s dresser. He looked about as bad as he felt. His eyes were black and sunken, his cheeks hollow, his skin pale. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, which was fairly accurate. His skin glistened in the moonlight, and for a moment Nico thought he was still sweating until he realized the moisture was from tears, not the cold sweat he’d woken up in. He furiously wiped his hand under his eyes to try and get rid of the traces of tears on his cheeks. He didn’t want anyone to come check on him and find him like this.

Someone to come check on him…Whoa. Now there was a thought.

He took another deep breath as he turned toward the door. He slowly pushed it open, careful not to make any noise. He was exhausted and sleepy, but he wanted company. He could still feel himself shivering from the nightmares. The only problem: Hazel was on deck. She was the only person whose company Nico really wanted right now, the only one who even remotely understood what he was going through.

Nico stopped in his tracks, standing in the middle of the dark hallway.

That statement was no longer correct. Someone else understood what he was going through, at least one part of it. And he just so happened to be in his cabin at the moment.

Nico started walking again, making his way toward Jason Grace’s cabin.


	2. Chapter 2

One thing Jason had definitely not been expecting the night before his meeting with Notus was a light knock on his door and the small, disheveled son of Hades he found on the other side. Jason had to rub the sleep out of his eyes to make sure it was Nico he was looking at and not some sort of crazy hallucination.

“Nico?” he asked. When Nico nodded, staring at the floor, Jason continued. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here? You should be asleep. You nearly killed yourself shadow-traveling us back here.”

“I did not nearly kill myself,” Nico countered, though he didn’t sound confrontational. He just sounded…tired. Physically and emotionally. It made Jason’s heart clench. His feelings for Nico had changed from feelings of indifference to feelings of protection; he wanted to wrap the kid up in fuzzy blankets and hide him away from the world. He wasn’t what Nico wanted, he wasn’t Bianca or Hazel or even Percy, but if Nico was hurting, Jason was going to be there to help, especially if no one else was.

“Are you alright?” Jason asked gently. One was always treading on hot coals whenever they asked about Nico’s wellbeing. Unless that person was Hazel, of course, but sometimes even she couldn’t get through to him.

Nico shrugged, keeping his eyes on the floor. If Jason didn’t know any better, he’d say the kid had been crying.

His heart broke. “Come on in. You look like you need to talk.” Before Nico had a chance to protest―little did Jason know, he hadn’t been going to―Jason steered him into his room and shut the door.

“So what’s going―” Jason didn’t even get a chance to finish his question before Nico threw himself at him, wrapping his arms around his middle in a tight embrace. “Whoa, hey, calm down. Relax, it’s okay.” His own arms came around Nico lightly, gently, since he knew the Hades boy didn’t like to be touched.

But as soon as he felt Nico trembling, his shoulders shaking, he didn’t hold back. He hugged that kid like his life depended on it.

“I can’t take it,” Nico sobbed―actually _sobbed,_ and that right there broke Jason’s heart. “I can c-control them. I know I c-can control them. But-But it’s just…I can’t do it. It’s too much. I…”

“Hey.” Jason knelt down a bit so he could look Nico in the eyes. Geez this kid was short. “It’s okay, look at me.” He turned Nico’s head so the younger boy looked at him. “I get it. Split was…it was intense. You lost control. It happens.”

“No it doesn’t!” Nico snapped, and Jason pulled his hand back as if afraid the kid would bite it off―which, knowing Nico, he might. “I’m the son of Hades! I control the darkness, the darkness doesn’t control me!” Tears streamed down his face, and he sounded so angry, so _confused,_ like there were too many things to do at once and it was pressing down on him, suffocating him.

“Come here.” Jason pulled Nico over to the bed, laying down and pulling Nico on top of him under the blanket. Nico made a stuttering protest, but Jason wasn’t having it. “No, you need cuddles and you need them now.”

Nico sighed, but adjusted himself so he lay beside Jason, curled against him with his head on Jason’s chest and his shirt in his fist. “This is really gay, you know.”

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

That earned him a solid elbow to the gut, which was thoroughly deserved.

“I can’t stay in Percy’s room,” Nico said after about a minute of silence. “I just…can’t.”

“You blame yourself.” It wasn’t a question, and Nico knew it. Jason could see it in the boy’s eyes, in the way he toyed with Jason’s shirt like a kitten. Odd comparison, Nico and a kitten, but it seemed to fit.

“Yeah,” Nico quietly admitted.

“I think we all do, in some way.” Jason shrugged the shoulder Nico wasn’t currently using as a pillow. “Frank and I should have flown down there and saved them. Leo should have flown the ship closer. Piper and Hazel should have been faster. The floor was unstable, it was gonna give no matter what we did. Honestly, you’re probably the least responsible for what happened to Percy. And Annabeth,” he added hastily to avoid another elbow to the gut. “You nearly suffocated in there. And starved. You survived on deathly pomegranate seeds, you were essentially tortured―”

“Could you not,” Nico cut in.

Jason winced. “Right, sorry.”

“Do you have a point to that speech or are you just rambling like the airhead you are?”

“Wow. That was low, dude.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Anyway, my point is that you were so weak, weaker than all of us. You could barely stand, let alone pull two teenagers to safety from an endless pit of doom. You are not responsible for what they’re going through down there. Not at all.”

“I know what they’re going through.” A memory surfaced in Nico’s mind, Jason could almost see it playing in his eyes like a movie. “I went through the same thing. And I paid the price for it.”

“You were helping us. None of this is your fault.”

“I love him.” Nico gripped Jason’s shirt tighter, clenching his teeth and shutting his eyes against what could only be a fresh wave of tears. “I _love_ him and now he’s going through that hellhole. With Annabeth. If there’s anyone you can’t afford to lose, it’s her. If either of them don’t make it out…” He trailed off, his voice breaking on the last word. Jason felt his shirt dampen as tears leaked out of Nico’s eyes.

Jason ran a hand through Nico’s hair, which seemed to comfort the boy. “I know. It hurts. I’ve had my share of crushes over the years, trust me. It hurts like a bitch. But it gets better. Maybe someday you’ll find comfort and love in someone new. You know what, scratch that ‘maybe.’ I _know_ you will. Your solace is coming, Nico. I swear to it.”

In the darkness of the room, Jason swore he saw Nico smile, genuinely smile, for the first time since Jason had met him. And it was the thought of that, of knowing Nico believed and trusted him, that lulled Jason to sleep that night, Nico still wrapped in his arms and clinging to him like a teddy bear.


End file.
